Xref: utzoo news.admin:2617 news.sysadmin:752
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!umix!teemc!mibte!uisc1!adf
From: adf@uisc1.UUCP (Andre Franklin)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: FCC?  U.S.Mail.? (Re: JJ's Revenge -- Part II)
Summary: mail FRAUD - what does it mean?
Message-ID: <79@uisc1.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jun 88 17:54:33 GMT
References: <33@uisc1.UUCP> <3132@edm.UUCP> <75@uisc1.UUCP> <273@clout.Jhereg.MN.ORG>
Organization: Unicorn Information Systems Corp, Detroit, MI, USA
Lines: 111

In article <273@clout.Jhereg.MN.ORG>, mark@clout.Jhereg.MN.ORG (Mark H. Colburn) writes:
> Not too long ago there was a similar case of an individual which ran
> an ad in the paper which read something like JJ's message.  Basically
> the gist of it was that you should send him a dollar just 'cause he
> was a nice guy.
> 
> There were no promises of services, no advertisment of products, etc.
> Just a plea for cash.
> 
> This individual was stopped by the post office for mail fraud.  I
> don't beleive that they ever sued, but they did make him stop running
> his add, which netted him a fair amount of money.

Makes you wonder about this great, free nation we live in, doesn't it?
I mean, let's call it as it is, shall we? As you said quite correctly,
there were no promises that weren't kept, no advertisements or false offers
of products or services, he simply asked for money. So??? What's wrong with
that? It is NOT illegal, NOT fraud, and frankly, I can't really say that I
can see anything immoral about it. Contrary to the protestant work ethic
maybe, but that's about it.

So why does the Post Office, an official government agency, violate this
man's constitutionally guaranteed right to self expression by blackmailing
him or using other extortion techniques resembling more the Mafia than the
free nation we claim to be?

> 
> The precedent for this is that "chain letters" are illegal.

Please, if you can, show me how this is based on the precedent of chain
letters? If I put an ad into a newspaper and ask for money and give my
address to send it to, there are not chain letters involved. In fact, I
didn't send ANY letters at all, chain or otherwise.

> given a standard chain letter where no money is
> involved, there is no reason why it should be illegal.  It does not
> represent a hazard to anybody's morals, or hurt anybody.  Directly.

Directly or indirectly. And frankly, I am not really concerned how some
preacher in Tennessee feels, the constitution specifically forbids the
government from establishing religion, and morality fall right under that
heading. But you are right, it shouldn't be illegal. There is no hazard
to anyone, everything is voluntary, and the government should keep its
nose out of people's personal affairs. Period!

> However, it does tie up the post office, thereby slowing everybodies
> mail down.  

And each person sending a letter is paying 25 cents for that privilege.
What's next? Shall we make greeting cards illegal too? How about love
letters? Anything except official business mail, does that sound good to
you? As long as I put my postage stamp on that letter, it is as important
and has as much right to being delivered as your love letter, your bill,
or your greeting card. Your argument that chain letters should be illegal
because they slow the delivery of someone else's love letter down is, for
want of a better word, bullshit!

> If you think about the chain letter concept, it is possible for a
> chain letter to literally stop all mail from flowing through the
> system after only several inerations.  Remember that chain letters 
> multiply exponentially. 

So do pen-friendship letters. When I was 10, I at one time was corresponding
at the same time with 114 people worldwide. Again, as long as the post
office is a public utility that accepts to deliver mail for a fee, it is
required to do so. Suggesting that someone else's mail should not be
delivered because you don't like the contents of the letter is stupid,
selfish, and inconsiderate in the extreme. I happen to feel that bills
and invoices unnecessarily tie up mail delivery and that if everybody
stopped sending them, the rest of the mail would get delivered a lot
faster. An even more applicable point is sales junk literature. Let's
get rid of all of the government propaganda they send to us paid for by
our tax dollars, and then maybe we can talk about getting rid of mail
that is paid for by private citizens.

> (By the way, chain letters that involve money are a different ball of
> wax altogether.  There is somebody out there getting rich, and
> somebody is being soaked, but they don't know it.  This, therefore, is
> mail fraud.)

Ummm, did you bother to think before writing this paragraph? IF someone
is getting rich, then that proves that chain letters can work. Otherwise
the only one who'd get "soaked" is the poor sap sending the letters off
in the first place. Remember, most of them send out 200-500 letters in
the hope that someone will reply, each at 25 cents. Even if this was not
the case, I have received (though never mailed) dozens of chain letters.
Each and every one of the explains in detail that mathematically the
scheme can work, but that there is no guarantee. Anyone who replies to
such a scheme does so voluntarily. I have real problems understanding where
fraud enters the picture. It seems a lot more fraudulent to me when someone
cons 250 million people into electing him president with a bunch of pretty
sounding lies, the vast bulk of which he has no intention of ever fulfilling.
Now THAT is fraud.

> What JJ did was not illegal according to his rights to express
> himself, but it is illegal according to laws which were developed to 
> allow mail to flow throughout the world with as little problems as 
> possible.

Care to cite chapter and verse? (Quote the applicable statute please)

> Although the chain-letter law does impose a "limit" on our freedom of
> expression, it is not a limit which people going about normal
> day-to-day business are going to find bothersome, and in the long run, 
> it helps us all.

I have heared that same argument used in connection with freedom of
religion, freedom to travel, freedom to vote, and so many dozens of others.
Each totalitarian regime imposes its restrictions because they will, in
the long run, help us all.

Sorry, I'm not sold on it. But welcome to the next totalitarian dictatorship.